State-of-the-Art Throughflow Analysis of Multistage Turbines by Exploiting CFD Methods

Despite the growing consolidation of 3D CFD approaches in industrial design practices, CFD-based throughflow codes are increasingly seen as fundamental and credible tools for aerodynamic analysis, with short turnaround times. The present paper retraces the development and some applications of a modern and complete CFD-based throughflow solver particularly suitable for multistage axial turbines. Its capabilities are demonstrated by discussing and comparing results with the experimental data available, for a significant range of test cases. A good agreement in terms of overall performance and spanwise distributions is achieved in both design and off-design operating conditions.